A study of hydraulic characteristics for flow in equatorial rivers

Abstract

This paper presents the results obtained from field measurements taken in several frequently flooded equitorial rivers, including velocity distributions, stage discharge relationships, roughness behaviours and discharge estimation. These have illustrated the large difference in velocity between the main channel and floodplain under flood conditions, and the effects of momentum transfer between deep and shallow flow, which include reduction in main channel velocity and discharge capacity, leading to a reduction in compound section capacity at depth above bankfull. Another significant characteristic that has been found is that the floodplain regions behave as storage reservoirs (V = 0 m/s) in most cases due to high resistance of long and thick grasses along the flood plains (n = 0.07–0.1). Flow resistance relationships have been presented in terms of Manning's coefficient and Darcy‐Weisbach friction factor, showing the complex nature of flow resistance in the rivers and further explaining the danger inherent in the conventional practices of extrapolating inbank data for the analysis of overbank flows. Results for discharge estimation have been shown for comparison with actual data, the errors incurred by applying empirical methods to compound channel flows have been quantified and found to depend on the particular method used.